To Be Queen Among the Damned
by Araminta Malfoy-Potter
Summary: Pansy Parkinson has always known exactly who she is, where she comes from, and what her life will be like...or has she? Perhaps blood will out.
1. Default Chapter

Everything belongs to JKR, but she says it's okay to play in it.

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To Rule Among the Damned by Araminta Malfoy Potter

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Pansy Parkinson stormed down the hallway, knocking portraits of Parkinson ancestors off the hall as she went and, to be frank, enjoying their howls of rage. She was not, positively _not_ pleased to have been called home from Hogwarts on a Hogsmeade weekend. Draco had promised to take buy her something expensive, Blaise had promised to buy her a drink at The Three Broomsticks, and Theodore had made mad promises with his eyes about what he'd do if she let him walk her back to the castle. Crabbe and Goyle had promised to stay far, far away.

"Mother," she spat as she entered the sitting room of Louisa Melliflua Parkinson, "what could possibly be so important that... Mother?"

Louise Parkinson was huddled on the floor in a sobbing heap. Her hair was a cloud of tangles--like Grangers, Pansy couldn't help thinking--and her robes were wrinkled and stained.

"Have you been drinking again?" Pansy asked quietly. She didn't wait for an answer, but moved to close the heavy velvet shades over the leaded glass windows.

Louisa choked and sniffed.

Pansy sighed. She levitated her mother onto the forbiddingly carved four-poster bed with a flick of her wrist, and drew the coverlet up. After handing Louisa a handkerchief, she reached for the cord to ring for a house-elf to bring tea.

"No!" Louisa managed through her tears.

"Shall I summon Father, then?" Pansy queried.

Immediately, Louisa shouted, "No!" and began to sob ever harder.

Pansy crawled into bed beside her mother and pushed the hair out of her mother's eyes. Her mother didn't smell like whiskey or wine, and she never cried otherwise. "Tell me, Mummy. You're scaring me."

Louisa blew her nose and took a deep breath. "I want you to pack your things, anything you want to take with you. We have to leave tonight, before your father--before Linus returns. He mustn't know you were here. You must be safe at Hogwarts by sundown, but oh, I couldn't bear for you never to see your room again. To never see _you_ again."

"You're mad, what--" Pansy started to pull away.

"Wait." Louisa pinched her bony fingers around Pansy's arm. "Listen. I'm going to go into hiding, but you'll be safe at Hogwarts. I never meant for this to happen. I had to pretend to keep you safe, but he knows, they both know! Pansy, Linus has sheltered you all these years, but he knows." She rose and pulled Pansy with her to the vanity. "Look there. Do you look like me?"

Pansy considered her own jet-black hair and gray eyes. "I'm not a blonde, no, but we have the same mouth. Funny that you and father both had light hair and I..." She faltered, giving over for the first time to a reality she had never bothered to face, had never needed to face. No one would dare point out such an inconsistency to a family as prominent as hers.

Louisa put her mouth close to Pansy's ear and whispered, her voice catching: "Linus Parkinson is not your father. Your father is Thomas Riddle."


	2. two

To Be Queen Among the Damned

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: It all belongs to JKR.

Pansy shook off her mother's grasp. "Mother! What are you saying?"

Louisa turned her bleary gaze upon her daughter. "I'm saying that you are in grave danger. And do you know why? That damn Potter boy, he had a photo in his trunk. The Great Hall. You were in it."

"You're not making any sense, Mother." Pansy began to back toward the doors. Perhaps one of the house-elves had already brewed a Dreamless Sleep Draught. "What does Potter have to do with anything?"

"Nott's boy got into his trunk on the train, and Nott sent the things to our Lord. He saw the photograph, and he saw you."

"I don't know what that has to do with anything," Pansy said, her skin crawling in anticipation. Her mother's drunken episodes were nothing new, but this paranoia, this strange story... She didn't want her mother to hurt herself, or get herself committed to St. Mungo's. No one deserved the torture of being confined to a room with the infamous Gilderoy Lockhart.

Louisa stumbled forward and held Pansy's face between her hands. "My darling. My beloved child. More than sixteen years ago, I was part of the Wizard Separation movement. We all were, everyone that mattered. Our Lord--" She broke off, her voice lowering to a hiss. "You know who, Pansy, you know."

"Of course I know," Pansy said trying to get free. "You're hurting me."

"We wanted to preserve the old ways, the separation. We wanted to protect our children from the Muggles. We wanted pure blood. We wanted a society unencumbered by Muggle-borns and all the horrors they bring, their drugs, their love of selling our secrets. Our Lord was our leader, and Pansy, when he was at his height, you should have seen him."

"I've heard he's horrible looking. Is it true?" Pansy asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"He looks like magic. Pure, pure magic. Some call it Dark, but you and I know it is merely that which scares those too weak to wield it. Before, though, he looked like any other man. His name, and we do not speak it unless we must, because to know it is to dare our very lives--"

"What is it?"

Louisa slapped Pansy so hard that the girl crumpled to the floor. "I've told you. Tom Riddle. He became the Dark Lord." Bending down, Louisa ran her hand gently over Pansy's straight, shining locks. "He is your father. And you must know, because you must understand why you cannot leave Hogwarts. In the castle, you will be out of his reach."

"What do I have to fear from him?" Pansy said. "He's powerful, the most powerful, and--"

"Close your foolish mouth." Louisa kneeled and wrapped her arms around her daughter, though Pansy struggled. "He does not know love. You, all of us, are expendable. I carried you within me because I loved you; I gave him myself because of his power. Pansy, he can't win. He won't. He's too weak, and he'll use you for his own ends. Stay in the castle. Let the trouble pass. We'll worry about the Muggles afterward."

Louisa let go her daughter and crossed to a heavy, carved wardrobe and rummaged within it while Pansy rubbed her jaw, which was rapidly purpling. "Here," she said, holding out an intricately painted porcelain teacup. "I won't send any letters, for I think the Death Eaters can trace family members, and you shall not send any to me." Louisa squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. "I love you. Stay in the castle."

Pansy, puzzled, sore, and overwhelmed, held up her palm for the teacup. It was a testament to the rarity of her befuddlement that she did not realize it was a Portkey until she felt the familiar tug behind her navel and found herself in the Slytherin common room.


End file.
